Teaching Study Skills at Kip McGrath Education Centres

Whose Responsibility Is It Anyway?

Exams bring its fair share of stress and pressure. It is a time when teachers, parents and children feel overwhelmed by the volumes of work that need to be covered in class and committed to memory at home.

Parents
often feel that teachers should provide more guidance about how to study. Teachers
feel that they have mountains of content to cover and do not have enough time
to review the content as well. This leaves one
wondering, who will show a child how to get through all the topics on their
exam scope?

Too Little, Too Late

There is no magic trick to replace making and spending
enough time to review work covered in class well in advance. Children’s busy afternoon
programmes barely leave them with enough time to complete their homework for
the following day. If a child only completes homework and skims over work for
weekly tests without making summaries of the work covered in class, it leads to
huge chunks of content to be covered prior to the exam. Mom, is it perhaps time
to help your child to cut down on afternoon activities?

Keywords are Key

Making summaries of work covered in class needs to be done
on a consistent basis. It reduces the workload prior to exams. When the key
points have been highlighted and summarised, the child only has to focus on
what has already been selected as the most important content. The child can
then use the keywords to formulate sentences in his/her own words. Children
often think that they have to repeat the words of the textbook verbatim.
However, it is more important to retell the facts in a way that makes sense to
them.

Mock Tests

Help your child to set his/her own test paper by formulating
their own questions with answers. This will help them feel more prepared and less
anxious before their exams.

Chrizelle Prinsloo is the owner of Kip McGrath Education
Centres, Walmer. She has a background in
psychology and has taught in mainstream and special-needs schools both locally
and abroad. Chrizelle is passionate about helping children gain confidence in
their own abilities and about finding different ways to help them learn.

OUR OTHER PUBLICATIONS:

ABOUT US

Kids Connection was successfully launched in March 2006 by Wendy Beaufort for distribution to parents and teachers in the local Port Elizabeth market. The comprehensive directory for young families from newborn to 12 years, was born because, Wendy, a mom of three, understood the importance of having detailed information related to children that is aimed at assisting young families spend less time PLANNING and more time PLAYING….READ MORE